Know the real truth behind fake news in social media,the purpose of fake news,it's types and how to identify fake news. Recently in WhatsApp two fake news suddenly got viral. Many people have received this and trapped in fake news net. People shared hurriedly the news in group due to lack of awareness in identifying the fake news.
Now a day’s everyone is tensed about this fake news in social media. Whenever you open WhatsApp or Facebook there are lots of fake news. Users are sometimes terrified with the fake news and share quickly it in their group. And later they get to know that this is fake news. This fake news not only creates tension among the individuals but also it sometimes hugely affect the interest of a nation. It also greatly upsets the business process. Many of the eminent leaders, stars and politicians are also disturbed by this fake news. But have you ever thought why fake news originates, what is the purpose of fake news, what role fake news play in the society, and the most important thing is how to identify fake news? So let’s discuss below in details about fake news.
What is Fake News?
Fake News is also known as junk news or pseudo news is a kind of yellow and chequebook journalism which spread fake and false information through online social media and traditional news media. Fake news is always sensational, pernicious and exaggerated in nature. Now a day due to the penalty bearing or defamation punishment traditional news media keeps them little bit careful from fake news. However fake news takes the advantage of social media where it can easily spread across all over the world in a short span of time. And also it is difficult to identify the real originator as it is difficult to find a pickpocket in huge crowd through howling.
Note: Yellow Journalism is the American term for Journalism which propagates illegitimate and unrefined news with eye catching headlines for large sale. Whereas chequebook journalism is an unethical and policy forbidding practice where news reporter paying sources for their information.
Types of Fake News:
According to Claire Wardle of First Draft News there are seven types of fake news.
1. Satire or Parody : "No intention to cause harm but has potential to fool"
2. False Connection : "When headlines, visuals or captions don't support the content”
3. Misleading content : "Misleading use of information to frame an issue or an individual"
4. False context : "When genuine content is shared with false contextual information"
5. Impostor content: "When genuine sources are impersonated" with false, made-up sources
6. Manipulated content : "When genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive", as with a "doctored" photo)
7. Fabricated content: ("new content is 100% false, designed to deceive and do harm")
What is the purpose behind the fake news?
Fake news is specially designed by some journalist to grab the attention of huge mass. With the advent of the social media, fake news generators are quite intelligent to generate fake news with stunning captions and photos with a mass hitting issue which instantly creates sensation among the readers and instigate them to share it rapidly. There are several purposes behind the fake news which are listed below.
Fake news always tries to mislead the mass audience. It constantly attempts to create the tension among the public through false propaganda of news on riots, wars, politics and religion.
Fake news is also published to hide the real truth from public in some social and political issues.
Fake news is rapidly generated at the time of elections to misguide citizens.
Fake news is also spread sometime against product brand to reflect on product sale.
Sometimes some persons intentionally escalate fake news only to get publicity.
Fake news also afflicts sometimes the political leaders, stars, business man, writers and eminent personalities in order to defame them and put them into controversies.
Fake news is generated by some fake news channel and websites only to get more traffic and generate revenue. This fake news channels create some funny videos, videos of theft, bribery and other such excitement news which generally grab the audience attention.
In the context of the United States of America and its election processes in the 2010s, fake news generated considerable controversy and argument, with some commentators defining concern over it as moral panic or mass hysteria and others worried about damage done to public trust.
In January 2017, the United Kingdom House of Commons conducted a parliamentary inquiry into the "growing phenomenon of fake news".
What is the role of fake news in the society?
Fake news spread 100 times much more than the true news. Fake news is designed so intelligently that people always make them viral in social media which is the main aim of the fake news originator. They consistently points on circulating the fake news rapidly and people should react it to immediately without identifying the truth. So it will fulfill the desire objective of the fake news originator.
Real Instances of Fake News in India:
At the time of Balakot attack one fake video came up in twitter that an Indian pilot was found wounded in Pakistan after the fighter jet plane crashed and asking for water. But when it was verified then it was the instance of aero show in Bengaluru where two fighter plane of Surya Kiran was crashed during rehearsal. The crash resulted in the death of one pilot and two other pilots were injured and that video corresponds to one Indian pilot who was found wounded in Bengaluru and asking for water.
Note: It was the same time when Indian captain Mr.Abhinandan was captured and held by the Pakistan officials. But instead of one pilot the sources said two Indian Pilots. And the above instance was of the second Indian Pilot but it was the instance of aero crash in Bangalore. Pak social media shares video of pilot injured in Bengaluru Aero Show as that of IAF Pilot
One fake post has appeared recently both in facebook and twitter that “Saudi Arabian govt releases arabic version of Bhagavad Gita”.
Fake news of missing child, government project plans, religion violence, communal violence,theft, rubbery and harassments are very common in WhatsApp.
How to identify fake news:
Fake news basically shared in groups where the message can directly hit number of people.
Fake news is always prompted with message to “Share it urgently”. You can easily verify the fake news which compels the reader to share it before the subject matter has been explained.
Fake news is always based on religion violence, communal violence, product defamation, threatening message for deactivation of account and very suspicious story of some unknown persons.
Some contest based win prize fake news also appears in facebook and whatsapp.
Suppose the fake message come to you then read the message properly before sharing to anybody. Because when you read any message fully then you can easily verify some compelling, threatening and irrelevant urgency in the subject matter. In the same message it has been repeatedly mentioned to share the message in groups or share it to this much number of people.
Somewhere you will notice also very minor spelling mistake and wrong sentence construction .So read the message properly, if you find it out as fake news then suddenly intimate in group not to share it to anybody.
Check the link properly.For ex. the message explained that it is from reliance communication but the link is rif.com. So always verify the link you can easily spot the fake news or messages.
To verify the authenticity of the news you can check in Google whether any news update is coming about this or not. If there is no news update from other news sources about this then it is absolutely fake news.(Note: We will update in next article how you can also report the fake news to verifying its authenticity.)
Sometimes many news channels also spread fake news. For that many fact checked sites and social media fact verification sites are available who can rapidly check the reality of this news.
The frequency of fake news is so rapid that above only we have mentioned 2 to 3 examples. But if we count then per daily basis 3 to 4 fake messages pop up in each social media. So we have to be very careful before sharing this fake news which ultimately hurt the sentiment of common people. The fake news is becoming so popular that the real valuable things are not getting the way to reach people. For this intolerance is increasing in the society. When the citizen of a country will be unaware about the truth and reality then how come the peace and development will be achieved in a country. The fake news is not a practice of today. But the day civilization has started some mischievous people always try to keep mass people in darkness. Now the choice is upon you how you will deal with the fake news.
Read it and Share it, So that maximum people can be aware by it.
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